By Georgina Mitchell

When Kate Tempest walked onto the stage, a hush of anticipation fell over the room.

Clad in green socks, black pants and a button-up shirt, she opened with an almost meek "Hello, I'm going to tell you some poems" before beginning a booming monologue that went on for 15 minutes. It was an impassioned and powerful opening to the Sydney Writers Festival.

She opened with the wisdom she learned from an old man with a mouth full of gold teeth, then spoke on selfish consumer culture and the need for humanity to stop craving "happiness the brand" which isn't real happiness.

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At times it seemed Ms Tempest was in a trance, standing in the middle of the stage as she closed her eyes, one hand clutched close and the other hanging by her side as she delivered lines so lyrical she was almost singing to the crowd: "Don't hold back, hold your own".

"Every pain, every grievance, every stab of shame, every day spent with a demon in your brain giving chase, hold it," she said. "Know the wolves that hunt you. In time, they will be the dogs that bring your slippers. Love them right, and you will feel them kiss you when they come to bite.

"Nothing you can buy will ever make you more whole. This whole thing thrives on feeling incomplete. It's why your search for happiness will fade in a moment and it's why you will never, ever find it there.

"Stop craving, hold your own."

Ms Tempest, 30, born Kate Calvert, made the crowd of more than 800 people feel like an intimate gathering as she spoke for nearly 40 minutes, earning a standing ovation for her two poems and stream of consciousness speech when she stepped down from the stage at the Roslyn Packer Theatre.

Tempest, born Kate Calvert, gave an absorbing performance.Credit:Prudence Upton

In Australia to talk about her debut novel The Bricks That Built The Houses, Ms Tempest also made an appearance on ABC's Q&A on Monday night, where she gave a hint of her performing style by reciting her poem Progress. The three-minute poem was just a hint of what Ms Tempest is capable of in full flight.

While Ms Tempest spoke, the crowd remained so silent and enthralled that when her first poem ended and she walked across the stage to get a drink of water, it took several seconds for the audience to resurface and applaud.

Tempest's debut novel The Bricks That Built The Houses.

Then she talked to the audience conversationally. Ms Tempest spoke about how homelessness is abhorrent but so many of us are disconnected from people living on the streets, the power of literature, and her feelings the first time she read Carl Jung: "It's not like you've learned something, it's like you've remembered something you already knew."

It was a sentiment many in the room had about Ms Tempest. At times empowering, at times uncomfortable ("stop clapping" she bade the audience several times, after making a point that there was "a damaging and dangerous racism at root in this country"), Ms Tempest earnestly began thoughts then abandoned them as she spoke in a frenzied torrent directly from her heart.

"Guilt is not good enough any more," she said. "Guilt is narcissism. Your guilt is about you. My guilt is about me. It's not good enough.

"This is everything I ever wanted to say. I'm not here to patronise you, I'm not here to blame you, I feel really awkward and weird, but this must be said.

"We are in the middle of such an insane time, where the amount of inequality that exists on this planet can be forgotten about by some. We can't keep pretending that everything is okay, because until somebody stands up and says 'I'm actually really f---ing worried' – because I am, I'm really worried, I'm really f---ing worried – I think that unless we actually engage with the reality of what's going on, in terms of the inequality in the Earth... I believe we have it in us to be empathetic beings.

"Hope, empathy, humility, love."

Coming up for breath before beginning her next poem, a portion of Brand New Ancients, Tempest's earnestness gave way to being self conscious.

"I'm wildly paraphrasing here," she said in relation to Jung, her voice going from her booming poetry performance tone to speaking normally, almost quietly. "So if you're from a newspaper or something..."

Like so many of her thoughts, it was left hanging in the air between the audience and the stage.